01/14/2026
In solidarity with all of our fellow grievers...
Dear MISS Foundation and Selah Carefarm Friends,
Year after year, bereaved families honor us with their trust, sharing stories of devastating loss and unwavering love. These families remind us why our work matters and drive us forward in our mission to provide compassionate, meaningful support to those navigating the most unbearable journey anyone can face.
In 2025, the MISS Foundation and Selah Carefarm continued to serve grieving individuals and families through compassionate, community-based care grounded in dignity, presence, and love. Our work reached people locally, nationally, and internationally, responding to traumatic loss with tangible support, education, and sustained accompaniment.
At Selah Carefarm, we provided nearly $300,000 in free crisis intervention and counseling care, ensuring that financial barriers never prevented families from receiving support during their most vulnerable moments. The Carefarm also received 895 individual intakes, reflecting the growing need for nature-based, relational grief care for those navigating profound loss.
Our commitment to children and families remained central. In 2025, we distributed dozens of specialized grief packets for children, including The Colors of Loss and Love in both English and Spanish, offering developmentally sensitive tools to help children express grief through creativity and story. Through our Kindness Project, we distributed 2,165 free kindness packets worldwide, extending compassion and connection far beyond our physical location.
Community education and professional training were also core pillars of our mission. This year, we delivered nearly 500 hours of community education, reaching diverse audiences including institutions such as Harvard Law School and the Mayo Clinic. These efforts focused on compassionate bereavement care, traumatic grief, and the ethical responsibilities of professionals working with loss. Additionally, we provided nearly 100 hours of clinical supervision to Compassionate Bereavement Care® (CBC) providers, strengthening the quality and integrity of grief support offered in communities across the globe.
Peer support remained a powerful avenue of connection. Our HOPE Mentor Program facilitated 90 mentor connections, representing approximately 360 hours of volunteer mentor support. These relationships offered steady, lived-experience companionship to those navigating grief, often during periods of profound isolation. Across MISS Foundation programs, we also completed 338 intake requests from grieving individuals and families seeking resources, care packets, and referrals to grief services. Our in-person and online support groups continued to provide safe spaces where bereaved families could share their painful stories with compassionate peers who understand the weight of similar losses.
Beyond human care, Selah Carefarm continued its unwavering commitment to nonhuman animals. Throughout the year, we lovingly cared for more than 60 abused and neglected animals, many of whom arrived with their own histories of loss, terror, and trauma. These animals are not adjuncts to the work; they are central to the carefarm’s healing ecosystem, offering quiet presence, safety, and mutual restoration. In recognition of our highest standards of ethical care, Selah Carefarm achieved Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) certification in 2025, affirming our commitment to excellence, transparency, and animal welfare.
Our founder Dr. Joanne Cacciatore was honored in 2025 with induction as a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW), a distinction recognizing scholars, practitioners, and policy leaders whose work advances social good through sustained, high-impact contributions. She also received the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) Research Recognition Award, honoring her decades of scholarship and leadership that have significantly contributed to the field of thanatology and the understanding of death, loss, and bereavement.
With the support from our fundraising advisor Carrie Ostroski and key team members, the MISS Foundation received a generous grant that spans the next 3 years from the Diane & Bruce Halle Foundation to help support grief therapy services at the Selah Carefarm. We also received very generous funding from Sue Franciose in honor of her precious daughter Emily (pictured below), the Dorrance Family Foundation, the Denver Foundation, the Jordan Kammrath Memorial Scholarship Fund, the Douglas Madsen Scholarship, the Cade Pendergraft Scholarship, and from many other extraordinary givers. These thoughtful and compassionate gifts allowed us to continue to serve our grieving families.
In 2025, a feature-length documentary about Selah Carefarm entered the film festival circuit. Produced by Jon Bregel, the film offers a quiet, intimate exploration of what it means to live with grief rather than “recover” from it. The documentary follows bereaved individuals, rescued animals, and the land itself as they move through daily acts of care, remembrance, and presence. Without offering cures or tidy resolutions, the film invites viewers into a slower ethic of healing rooted in relationship, nature, and compassion, revealing how beauty can emerge alongside sorrow when grief is met with patience, dignity, and love. Bregel’s collaboration with Selah Carefarm reflects a shared commitment to honoring grief with honesty, reverence, and depth.
This Giving Tuesday brought an extraordinary challenge: Grace's mom, a longtime MISS volunteer and supporter, offered a $5,000 matching gift if we could meet it. The response was overwhelming. In just 36 hours, 21 generous donors rallied together to not only match her gift but triple it—raising $15,000 for our programs. Special thanks to Phil and Hethie Parmesano. We are truly grateful for each and every donation, as well as the dedicated in-kind contributions from our volunteers, staff and supporters who work tirelessly to support our grieving families.
We would like to thank each of you from the bottom of our hearts for being a friend of the MISS Foundation and the Selah Carefarm. We simply cannot do this work without you!
We are grateful to everyone who has already supported our work this year. If you would like to make an end-of-year gift, there is still time—online donations and checks postmarked by December 31, 2025 are tax-deductible for this fiscal year. Your contribution helps us continue providing vital support to bereaved families in 2026 and beyond.
https://www.missfoundation.org/donate/
Gentle New Year's Eve love from all of us at the MISS Foundation and Selah Carefarm.
